GOP targets family planning program

Republicans are looking to wipe out funding for Title X, a 40-year-old family planning program.

The cut would be a hard hit against Planned Parenthood, which received $16.9 million of Title X funding in 2009. By law, the funds must be spent on health care such as contraceptives, pelvic exams, and safer-sex counseling, and cannot be spent on abortion services.

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The cuts are part of the continuing resolution, a Republican spending proposal released Wednesday.

Started in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, Title X is the only source of federal funds dedicated solely to family planning and reproductive health. Some 5 million women and men received services through 4,500 community-based clinics in 2008, according to the Department of Health & Human Services.

The House Appropriations Committee said in a Wednesday press release that it would cut $327 million from the family planning program. That would effectively wipe out the program’s budget: for fiscal 2011, Title X was authorized at $327 million and appropriated $317 million.

Republicans were already eyeing the Title X program as ripe for attacks. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has introduced separate legislation that would strip Planned Parenthood of its Title X funding.

But while his legislation bar abortion providers from participating in Title X, the Republicans’ continuing resolution would wipe it out entirely.

Pence will hold a press conference on his legislation tomorrow, although he does not have an indication from Republican leadership as to when it would move forward. “I’m talking to Chairman [Joe Pitts of the Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee], working with him and hope to see this through,” Pence told POLITICO in an interview Tuesday.

"The new anti-choice House leadership now wants to take away birth control and cancer screenings from millions of American women and men," NARAL Nancy Keenan said. "While these politicians attack abortion coverage from every angle, they now want to deny funding for birth control, even though that’s the best way to prevent unintended pregnancy. Americans will not stand for this blatant hypocrisy."

"The real impact of eliminating the Title X program is that millions of women across the country will lose access to basic primary and preventive health care, such as lifesaving cancer screenings, contraception, STI testing and treatment, and annual exams," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood. “In fact, six in ten women who access care from a family planning health center consider it to be their main source of health care.”

Overall, the spending outline aims to trim $40 billion from current spending levels would wipe out funding for a federal family planning programs, including $1.3 billion from current funding for community health centers.

And the National Institutes of Health face a $1 billion reduction, more than wiping out the fiscal 2011 increase sought by President Barack Obama.

The House is expected to vote next week on the seven-month continuing resolution that will fill out the remainder of the fiscal year.

The full details of this draft bill are not expected to be made public until Thursday, but the House Appropriations Committee released a partial list of proposed cuts.